On May 31, Tomoe Shokai liquidated five joint ventures (located in the cities of Tsugaru, Kofu, Takasaki, Mobara and Oume) and put them into its ownership completely. In the wake of the discontinued production at Oume and Kofu plants of Renesas Electronics relating to former Hitachi, Tomoe proposed to the joint ventures to reconsider the conventional JV style of business as to also the other three companies due to the discontinued on-site supply of nitrogen, and the proposal was accepted.

Kofu Gas Center out of the five centers was established jointly with Showa Denko on a 50/50 basis as a nitrogen supplying company for the semiconductor plant of Hitachi in March, 1983. It was Japan’s first nitrogen on-site plant for the semiconductor industry, and the JV style was then adopted in combination with the existing nitrogen supplying system then. In Hitachi’s semiconductor plants, Tomoe was mainly kept involved in the construction of on-site facilities one after another in the J/V style supplying after then.

In the second half of 1980s when there was a construction rush of new semiconductor plants, the on-site nitrogen supply system became the main stream. In the history, we can say that Kofu Gas Center played a pioneering role. With the lapse of 32 years since establishment, the on-site plant will be removed soon as if it had kept a close watch over the ups and downs of the semiconductor market of Japan.
The three gas centers at Tsugaru (Fuji Electric), Takasaki (Renesas Electronics ) and Mobara (Japan Display) will continue their on-site supply of nitrogen as part of Tomoe’s internal organization.